cover design

Once I started working on the cover, I managed to get quite far with it quite quickly which I am really pleased with. 

I started making the boys first - I initially went for the process I used for my CoP work with the different sections stuck together but it didn't look good, so I simplified them making them into more of a silhouette 

I added a white shadow to give them a bit more definition to stand out against the blue

Font is where I usually have trouble, but I took advice Ben gave a few months ago - to pick a font and then use the pen tool to cut around it to make it work better with my cut out aesthetic, I think it has worked well here, I used Gill Sans but this has made it more interesting and child friendly I think

I originally was going to have the boys running through lines of text, but I think it works better to have the text clumped together - that way there will be space for the man at the bottom

This was an accident but it gave me the idea to have the boys running onto the back cover - making it more of a continuous image

To do this I altered the path of the boys, giving the design more of a line of sight which is a much more appropriate composition for the concept of a chase - it makes it more fun as an image as well

I played around with the blurb - matching the content of the words to the design works a lot better, the second attempt looks more like the words are illustrating the chase, this design also allows me to play around with little characters around the text:

This works well - it makes the presence of text much more interesting as it is part of the image

I thought the cover needed a third colour, so I added money flying out the the briefcase, I initially had it all over the page but then decided to have it fly with the boys - to emphasise the line of sight

Looking at it all together however, it all suddenly seems very busy and complicated. So I took the boys off the back page as it became difficult to fit all the extra text, and I didn't realise I needed to have the puffin logo on the back as well

This is much cleaner - and I like the logo under the blurb, it looks professional. I think I will add some more of the mini boys running around the back cover